Apricot, rose and cardamom cake

This is a wonderfully delicious, intensely aromatic cake, “perfumed”, as my children like to say, with flavours and aromas that instantly transport you to the Middle East. Cardamom, lemon, rose water and rose petal preserve are the stars of the show here. There’s something quite magical about this cake – the flavour and aroma are straight out of The Arabian Nights… Nigella again, and another gluten-free recipe. I should warn you, though: this is not a cake for everyone. Rose and cardamom have quite distinctive flavours, and they won’t appeal to every palate. But if you love them as much as I do… well, I can promise you, you’ll find this cake very hard to resist ;).

Ingredients for the cake:

• 150 g dried apricots
• 250 ml cold water
• 2 cardamom pods
• 200 g ground almonds
• 50 g finely ground polenta (yellow cornmeal)
• 1 tsp baking powder (use gluten-free if necessary)
• 150 g caster sugar
• 6 large eggs
• 2 tsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp rose water

All ingredients should be at room temperature.

Place the apricots in a small saucepan, pour over the cold water and add the cardamom pods, split in half. Bring to the boil and cook for about 10 minutes over low to medium heat, until almost all the water has been absorbed by the apricots. Remove from the heat and leave to cool (as they cool, the small amount of remaining water will continue to be absorbed by the apricots).

Set aside 5 of the cooled apricots and cut them in half. Place the remaining apricots in a food processor. Remove the seeds from the cardamom pods and add them. Add the ground almonds, polenta, baking powder, sugar and eggs, and blitz until combined. Add the lemon juice and rose water to the resulting purée and blitz again.

Line a 20 cm round cake tin with baking paper. Arrange the apricot halves evenly around the base of the tin, cut side down. Pour the cake batter over them and smooth the top.

Bake at 180°C for about 40 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the centre comes out clean. The cake may rise quite dramatically during baking (as a result of blending the eggs), but it will sink afterwards – this is completely normal.

Additionally:

• 2 tsp rose petal preserve or apricot jam
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2½ tsp chopped pistachios or pistachio slivers
• dried rose petals (optional)

While the cake is still warm, brush it with the rose petal preserve mixed with the lemon juice. Sprinkle with the chopped pistachios and rose petals (I used dried ones).

Enjoy!

Recipe source: Nigella Lawson, Simply Nigella: Feel Good Food.